


Avalon

by pearypie



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 02:29:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6934747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearypie/pseuds/pearypie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Undertaker meets Elizabeth Midford at the Sphere Music Hall and, with an ache in his heart, realizes just how much she resembles his dear Claudia. </p><p>A spark of something lit behind her eyes and her gaze turned hot—poppy fire bright. “I may be a lady but for those dearest to me, I will shed all pretense and fight until my dying breath. Until my muscles ache and my heart throbs with unrest, I will continue my battle. There is nothing, dear sir, I would not do for the person I love best.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Avalon

She reminded him of his valkyrie in so many ways—bold, bright, so full of ebullience and good cheer. She was strong—not just physically like _her,_ wielding swords and cutting down opponents, but her heart was the foundation for the rest of her soul. A rose blossom that bled red, so full of love and the desire to help. If there was one thing Undertaker loathed about humanity it was their crass carelessness in regards to the heart.

Their most vital organ—the keystone of life. How easy it was for a man to disregard his wife, for sister to abandon brother, for cousin to forsake cousin—was there nothing left of loyalty? Nothing left of empathy, that damnable emotion Reapers and demons assigned to every being with a soul? His valkyrie had it—she had it in spades.

She was fire tempered steel, a drop of liquid sun—but so very kind, so full of courtesy and charm. It amazed the legendary Reaper that when they first met, she had given him a smile reminiscent of the Venus star, lovely and auroral to accompany her flush.

_“Good day, sir. I have come to inform you that the moon is collapsing, the streets are vacating, and all of London has been run through with Turks and vicious wild bears who wish to devour our honey and steal our women.”_

He had never laughed so hard then when Claudia Phantomhive visited. Witty, clever, and perfectly audacious—that was his valkyrie. A maiden with golden hair, dahlia fair skin, and eyes…oh her _eyes._ They were jade green, the color of spring willows in Arcadia. The eyes that shone like moonbeams when she laughed, a warm, all encompassing sound that made any man, woman, or child feel welcome.

His valkyrie.

But then she died—snatched away by the fiendish hands of a vengeful master, robbing his dear sweet beloved of the life she radiated so brilliantly. It was a crime, the Undertaker mourned, a villainous crime of the greatest caliber to take Euthymia herself, wrenching her soul away from this earth so she could join the graces in heaven. It was not fair.

His valkyrie...after decades of decay, of watching the unhappy scramble for a second breath, he had found someone who seemed to light up the caverns of Hades.

He had found his Persephone but she had been snatched away by a vengeful god who sought to punish the damned even further.

Yet the Undertaker, for all his miscellaneous madness, had his heart touched by Valhalla and he would not rest until his valkyrie was back in his arms. Oh Claudia—if she knew the things he had done for her (all an endeavor to breathe life back into her porcelain doll body) she would have laughed at the absurdity of it all. (Or, that is what the Undertaker hopes—he cannot bear her rejection…the thought of her sad smile.)

* * *

 

 When the golden haired, emerald eyed Elizabeth Midford was presented before Undertaker, he looked at her with something akin to wonder. His own lightening green eyes—hidden behind a curtain of silver hair—widened with awe.

_Claudia._

She looked so much like Claudia—her features were softer, still childish with youth, but _she was there._ Her countenance was warm with the sweetness of Charis’s blessing, and she held the innocence of Psyche, whose purity overwhelmed even Aphrodite. Her dream-dimmed eyes looked faraway and in them, Undertaker could see the desperate ache of longing that could have only been born through years of silent suffering.

Oh, he _knew._ He knew how her heart was now held together with silken thread; how the boy she loved so dearly kept cutting deeper and deeper into the cavern of her soul.

She approached him tentatively but not at all ungraciously. In this hidden antechamber of the Sphere Music Hall, Undertaker would do her no harm. He would never rue the likeness of his beloved valkyrie, but still! How his repressed heart and sanity sang—sang with anguish and love and wonder.

One black fingernail traced the curve of her cheek and, like Claudia, she did not flinch away in fear. Instead, she looked at him as if he were Prometheus, awaiting her gift.

“Do you wish to save your beloved?” _Your earl._

Her jade eyes brighten, just as his valkyrie’s did. “Oh yes, good sir, more than anything. I wish to make Ciel happy—to take away his sorrow.”

A faint smile appeared on the Undertaker’s mouth. _Poor child._ “Then you must heed this judgement with fair-minded pragmatism, do you understand? Your gentle fairy heart might break but you must do this for the sake of those you love.”

A spark of something lit behind her eyes and her gaze turned hot—poppy fire bright. “I may be a lady but for those dearest to me, I will shed all pretense and fight until my dying breath. Until my muscles ache and my heart throbs with unrest, I will continue my battle. There is nothing, dear sir, I would not do for the person I love best.”

 _Claudia._ He thinks with begonia sweet regret, tilting her chin up with mournful affliction. Her golden bangs fall back and—by light of the silver moon, shadowed with ebony night—she is Claudia reborn.

* * *

 

“Very well child, listen to the piper’s song and play your part well. For there is a spirit after the borrower of your heart—he is Eurynomos and he is here.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- Arcadia: refers to the idyllic imaginary paradise created by the poet Virgil in his poem ‘Eclogues’.
> 
> \- Euthymia: one of the three Graces. She represented mirth. 
> 
> \- Valhalla: the majestic palatial home to King Odin in Norse mythology; located in the realm of Asgard. Can connote paradise. 
> 
> \- Charis: another name for the three Graces. 
> 
> \- Psyche: the beautiful princess whose face was so lovely she enraptured Eros himself. 
> 
> \- Poppy: flowers that represent sleep, peace, and death; Romans dedicated this flower to Morpheus, the god of sleep. (Idk, I saw this as Lizzy being in a kind of haze, agreeing to do anything and everything the Undertaker asked of her in a desperate attempt to save Ciel.) 
> 
> \- Begonia: red begonia, meaning dark and unpleasant thoughts that distract from joy and happiness. 
> 
> \- Eurynomos: one of the daemons of the Greek underworld who ate the flesh of all corpses and left only their bones behind. 
> 
> A/N: Super quick one-shot about Undertaker, Claudia, and Lizzy. Since Claudia’s blonde now (or having lighter hair), I’m just gonna au this so she looks like Lizzy, had a romance with Undertaker, and is basically the linchpin for solving the Blue Sect arc. (None of this is canon, it’s just my weird au.)


End file.
